Seattle embraces diverse cultures and creative ideas, and offers you unlimited opportunities to experience art, heritage and culture, all in a setting of rare natural beauty. What will you find? A thriving music, dance and theatre scene. Vibrant galleries and one-of-a-kind museums. Native American, maritime and pioneer history. Strong and diverse ethnic heritage influences. Fun festivals for every interest. We invite you to discover the creative vitality that makes Seattle such a great place to live and to visit. More...

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Theatre

Seattle enjoys a rich tradition of nationally acclaimed theater, including numerous professional companies that bring new plays to the stage and present the classics with vigor and style.

The Intiman Theatre, founded in 1972, is one of six in the country currently recognized as a "Leading National Theatre" with a three-year grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, and winner of the 2006 Regional Theatre Tony Award. Located on the Seattle Center campus, Intiman has presented world premieres of plays that have won Pulitzer Prizes, Tony Awards, Grammy Awards and New Play Awards from the American Theatre Critics Association.

Founded in 1963, the Tony Award-winning Seattle Repertory Theatre emphasizes high-quality classic and contemporary dramatic plays. The Rep is located on the Seattle Center campus and has two stages, including the Bagley Wright Theatre.

A Contemporary Theatre (ACT), located next to the Washington State Convention & Trade Center, was founded in Seattle in 1965 to nurture and present contemporary theatre. With four stages, ACT produces a full schedule of plays, and hosts the long-running one-nun show, Late Nite Catechism.

The 5th Avenue, opened in 1926 as a vaudeville house, today presents and produces a wide variety of classic Broadway musicals. The historic theater has launched several shows on their way to Broadway, such as the mega-hit Hairspray.

Seattle is graced with two other historic performance theatres: The Moore, which debuted in 1907; and The Paramount, built in 1928. All three are beautiful examples of the tradition of extravagant show houses. These theatres bring a wide variety of entertainment to Seattle, including touring Broadway, dance performances, comedians, headliner musicians and specialty acts, such as Wicked, Stomp, Jerry Seinfeld, Dame Edna, Wynton Marsalis and the Bolshoi Ballet.

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Seattle Symphony

Founded in 1903, Seattle Symphony is one of the oldest and largest cultural organizations in the region. Under the musical direction of Maestro Gerard Schwarz, the 91-musician symphony is one of the world's most-recorded orchestras, recording nearly 100 CDs and nominated for 10 Grammy Awards. From September through July, the symphony performs more than 220 concerts attended by more than 315,000 patrons in the architecturally and acoustically brilliant Benaroya Hall.

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Seattle Opera

Founded in 1963, Seattle Opera has developed into one of the leading opera companies in the United States. The company is recognized internationally for its theatrically compelling and musically accomplished performances. Seattle Opera's summer presentations, particularly of Wagner's Ring des Nibelungen, have been acclaimed often and widely as among the country's premier cultural events. Under the leadership of General Director Speight Jenkins, Seattle Opera offers a regular season of five operas per year in the stunning new venue, McCaw Hall.

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Pacific Northwest Ballet

Seattle's highly acclaimed resident ballet company, founded in 1972, gets its artistic direction from internationally recognized Peter Boal, who danced with the New York City Ballet for 22 years and was a faculty member at the School of American Ballet. The company of 43 dancers presents more than 90 performances of innovative choreography a year at Marion Oliver McCaw Hall and on tour around the globe. In addition to a repertoire of nearly 100 ballets representing a broad diversity of choreographers and dance styles, the company presents a dazzling and unique Nutcracker that prompted Newsweek magazine to say "this Nutcracker alone is worth a trip to Seattle."

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Museums & Art Galleries

The Seattle area is home to an excellent collection of art, history, maritime, and special interest museums, including one of the largest air and space museums in the world, and a one-of-a-kind music museum housed in a notable Frank Gehry-designed building. Or spend your days browsing through the more than 200 art galleries that enliven many city neighborhoods.

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